By now, everyone knows I’m a Microsoft fanboy… Why? Because what I need is there… Even though I use Linux for other stuff…
This campaign is more personal than general… Which really shows how idiotic things are…
I’m going to quote things written in there partly and talk about each part…
The logo: “Windows 7 Sins, The case against Microsoft and proprietary software”…
Why Microsoft in italic and yellow background? Is Microsoft a software? No, they’re a company… So why targeting a company and proprietary software? Why not, ummm, EA? UbiSoft? Apple? Konami? Why specifically Microsoft?
Carrying on, I’ll discuss the “Abuse Examples” that “windows7sins.org, the Free Software Foundation” believe that Microsoft committed.
1) Poisoning education:
Today, most children whose education involves computers are being taught to use one company’s product: Microsoft’s. Microsoft spends large sums on lobbyists and marketing to corrupt educational departments. An education using the power of computers should be a means to freedom and empowerment, not an avenue for one corporation to instill its monopoly.
I personally prefer using Microsoft’s office formats and software since they’re better for me… Easier to deal with and much faster… Which reminds me of a scenario that happened few years ago. I tried to create a powerpoint presentation in OpenOffice (Don’t know whats the equivalent for OpenOffice), and took so much effort and time. And ended up slow and annoying… Switched to Microsoft’s PowerPoint and life got easier… What’s the difference? Microsoft provide ease of use for some cash, OpenOffice doesn’t… I personally prefer paying some cash for something that would ease my life…
Which gets us back to education; you have two options:
1) Provide a sluggish software that would make things harder for students to do their stuff (HW, presentations… etc)… But hey, it’s free!
2) Provide a software that would make things easier and faster for students to do their stuff… With a price!
The choice is actually yours; If you want to struggle just to make a spreadsheet, don’t pay and go with OpenOffice… If you want to do things faster and proper, pay up and use Microsoft’s Office (Or probably others as well)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disrespecting OpenOffice and the whole FSF, its just that an experience I went through which made me think twice about OpenOffice.
Another thing I’d like to add is that Microsoft is now opening more for other vendors… Might not open up with Windows 7 and Office, but they actually opened up more with other stuff… Silverlight? Mono? PHP toolkit for ADO.NET or whatever? Might take them a while, but they ARE opening up more than before…
2) Invading Privacy:
Microsoft uses software with backward names like Windows Genuine Advantage to inspect the contents of users’ hard drives. The licensing agreement users are required to accept before using Windows warns that Microsoft claims the right to do this without warning.
C’mon… Get real… How do you want Microsoft to check whether your Windows is Genuine or not without installing this software? Oh I forgot, your OS is free and open, you don’t worry about this issue… But Windows isn’t, Microsoft worries about this issue… As you all know, they invest alot of money and efforts to publish such OS, which, they have to make sure no one is pirating it… It’s not invading privacy… You want to check? Packet sniff your network and see if original Windows (With WGA ofcourse) will leak sensitive\private data…
3) Monopoly Behavior:
Nearly every computer purchased has Windows pre-installed — but not by choice. Microsoft dictates requirements to hardware vendors, who will not offer PCs without Windows installed on them, despite many people asking for them. Even computers available with other operating systems like GNU/Linux pre-installed often had Windows on them first.
True to that… But hey, Apple does the same… Why not mentioning Apple’s Mac OS X? Oooh, Redhat and SUSE are as well… Yes, Microsoft is monopolizing PC, but Apple is monopolizing Mac computers (Now thinking about it, they’re both PC)… Why not aim at Apple as much as you aim at Microsoft? Why not aim at Redhat? Yes, they’re providing Fedora, but Redhat isn’t free! Same goes with SUSE…
Beside, you can always install Linux or whatever OS you want… You can always assemble your own PC and install your desired OS… And when it gets to laptops, they’ve been recently providing Linux or no OS… Some provide, some doesn’t… So quit whining…
4) Lock-in:
Microsoft regularly attempts to force updates on its users, by removing support for older versions of Windows and Office, and by inflating hardware requirements. For many people, this means having to throw away working computers just because they don’t meet the unnecessary requirements for the new Windows versions.
True to that, but that didn’t happen with Windows 7 (The one you’re making a big fuss about)… Y’know, Microsoft stated that Windows 7 works with whatever works with Windows Vista… Leaving Windows XP aside because, well, it’s a legacy…
Let me discuss this in another approach: You have a Pentium IV and you want to play a, ummm, Crysis… You’d need to fundamentally upgrade your hardware to play that game… Why? Because the game requires better hardware specs to operate… Why not going nuts over Video games? Why just Microsoft Windows?
Same thing goes with almost every software; there’s minimum requirement so the software can operate the way it meant to be… But there’s always few workarounds to let something work with lower specs… But hey, here’s some specs that Windows 7 works with:
1GHz processor (32-bit and 64-bit)
1GB of RAM for 32-bit, 2GB of RAM for 64-bit
16GB free of your HDD for 32-bit, 20GB free of your HDD for 64-bit
A video card that supports DirectX 9 with WDDM 1.0
Literally, can work on almost ANY computer\laptop that has Pentium IV and above… Yes, Linux demands less, but Windows demands more… What’s the problem?
5) Abusing Standards:
Microsoft has attempted to block free standardization of document formats, because standards like OpenDocument Format would threaten the control they have now over users via proprietary Word formats. They have engaged in underhanded behavior, including bribing officials, in an attempt to stop such efforts.
Oh, really? I’d like to quote something from Wikipedia (Ironically):
Starting with Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Open XML file formats (ECMA-376) have become the default file format of Microsoft Office.[14][15] However, due to the changes introduced in a later version, Office 2007 is not entirely in compliance with ISO/IEC 29500:2008.[16][17][18][19] Microsoft has stated that the planned Microsoft Office 2010 will be the first version to implement the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 compliant version of Office Open XML.[17][18][19]
And the WORD issue in Microsoft is another case, it’s just that they used something (Something related to XML tags) from another vendor and things are turning against Microsoft even though there’s some hope that WORD might live… Don’t mix up something with another…
6) Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM):
With Windows Media Player, Microsoft works in collusion with the big media companies to build restrictions on copying and playing media into their operating system. For example, at the request of NBC, Microsoft was able to prevent Windows users from recording television shows that they have the legal right to record.
True, but Microsoft isn’t the only party thats enforcing DRM… Apple? The RIAA?
7) Threatening user security:
Windows has a long history of security vulnerabilities, enabling the spread of viruses and allowing remote users to take over people’s computers for use in spam-sending botnets. Because the software is secret, all users are dependent on Microsoft to fix these problems — but Microsoft has its own security interests at heart, not those of its users.
Oh please, Windows has a black history of security issues, which is why you keep thinking Microsoft is as vulnerable as before… Check Windows Vista’s malwares and vulnerabilities count and compare them to Windows XP… Do you notice the big difference?
As if Microsoft wants this to happen, every OS is vulnerable… No exception… It’s only a matter of time and amount of user to actually float those vulnerabilities to the surface… Same goes with Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS, Symbian, Android, iPhone OS… etc…
And no, users aren’t dependable on Microsoft to fix these problems, we’re actually dependent on Anti-Viruses vendors to keep us safe. Microsoft had issues with security, but they dramatically improved.
On the other hand, Apple started to gain more share and attention… Why not mention Apple? No! We have to blame Microsoft for that… Oh, wait! Adobe Flash had issues as well… So did Linux (Ubuntu)… Just sign to their vulnerability RSS feed and you’ll notice that they find out some every now’n’then…
I repeat:
Don’t get me wrong, I like Linux, GNU and the whole FSF, but I like Microsoft as well… Most of my software (Free or proprietary) runs on Windows… Why proprietary? Because they make my life easier…
I keep Linux to poke around with things…
I’m not disrespecting GNU\FSF… I actually appreciate what they’re doing and would sign and help’em out… But, they’re taking it in a personal matter… They’re generally aiming at proprietary software (Which, I honestly feel like they have the right to do so… After all, Trademark must remain… People worked hard for that)…
But I’m disrespecting the approach they’re taking (Which made me laugh… Such a childish approach)… Why Microsoft specifically? Why Windows 7? Why not Apple? Why not Adobe Flash? Why not Mac OS X?
I’m quite sure alot of people would go nuts after reading this and all… But hey, I’m entitled to my opinion… It’s your choice to take it or leave it…
I am a linux user and I want to talk about my point of view away from the windows7sins.org
Considering openoffice, I did a swift transfer from MS Office to openoffice. I did have encountered some problems but I get support online for “free”. Now, I use both openoffice and google Docs for my documents and I am very happy with them.
Considering the open format, personally you can use any format. But when it comes to governments, they have to follow standard and the standard is and will be ODF. Microsoft saw that it is threatened by that movement so they put their money and effort trying to make their open xml is the default standard and they failed.
About monopoly, yes they play monopoly and apple don’t. Why? It’s because apple own the hardware. They have their unique way to produce their hardware thanks to steve jobs. On the other hand, M$ don’t own the hardware. They make contracts with hardware vendors to install windows and only windows to their hardware so that the consumer will not have the option to have a PC or laptop other than windows installed in it. Simply… Monopoly
Considering security, Security is not a feature. It is practice. So the law here is “Each OS is secure until it is vulnerable”. Say ubuntu released a new distro and it is secure. When someone see a vulnerability in Ubuntu, it became no more secure. So the user have to worry about the period when the vulnerability discovered until they fix the problem. For linux that period is a matter of days but for windows it’s a matter of months.
Sorry for the very long comment. Some day I have to talk about these matters in my blog and thank you
Addictioneer:
Regarding OpenOffice: You like it, I’m happy… But I don’t… It’s nothing but a personal opinion… I feel comfy using it and I personally hated OpenOffice which is why I wouldn’t mind paying some cash to ease my work… What’s so evil in that?
Regarding OpenFormat: Government sectors outside Kuwait (Not to mention Middle) usually considers Microsoft Office formats the default for them. Not because they’re better (In my point of view, they are… It’s just me), but because they are available much more than ODF
Regarding Monopoly: I’d agree if we’re talking about 10 years ago, but not anymore… When did Apple own Intel? Isn’t Apple’s new computers are Intel-based? Leaving Apple aside, you mentioned “CONTRACT” which is “A DEAL BETWEEN MANUFACTURERS AND THE SOFTWARE VENDOR”… Which mean that the manufacturers actually approved to stuff their products with Microsoft’s products… Manufacturers have the free will to reject Microsoft offers… That being said, Netbooks doesn’t come with Windows by default. It actually comes with various flavors of Linux… That being said, you should read up the Google Voice app rejection from Apple\AT&T side… THAT is a total bullshit… Microsoft wouldn’t take such action… Atleast not the new Microsoft (You should read the Windows 7 EU version related articles)…
Regarding Security: So? What if Ubuntu released a fix quickly? In Windows’ case, Anti-Viruses would release some kind of quick remedy until Microsoft patches that security issue… Same goes with Apple’s Mac OS X; Where they recently patched a 6~7 months old security vulnerability… Why that long? Because there’s no Anti-Virus for that OS which made it vulnerable until Apple fixed that issue…
You make valid and good points… Much better than the void Windows7sins.org points… They’re targeting specifically under the name of “Fighting proprietary software”… Instead of focusing on Microsoft alone, they could’ve focused on game developers and make’em develop for Linux for example… There’s few games out there for Linux and there’s always some wine\mono workaround for Windows games to run on Linux… But the game industry is totally not serious about Linux support… Atleast at the time being…
Dear loolykkins
Regarding to openOffice: I do respect your choice. MS office is a proprietary software and I do respect it. I don’t like the idea of fighting proprietary software. I think open and proprietary software should exist with each other.
Considering Open Format: Availability is not how a format is measured. It is about your document survival. It’s about editing your document regardless to the implementation (office suite). That’s what open formats are fighting for.
Regarding Monopoly: Apple don’t own Intel… Yes. Intel based hardware does not mean that the hardware is not owned by apple. Saying apple own their hardware could be right and wrong. It’s because Intel could provide CPU and other parts but still the architecture and the assembly of hardware is absolutely apple business. So, they still have the right to control their hardware. Netbook is another story. Microsoft were not interested for these small devices. But when netbooks gain their market share, MS start to ship windows with them. Considering contracts, MS like to play its dirty games in this field.
About Security: Vulnerable OS cannot be protected by Anti-virus alone. It’s about the development and maintenance model they follow. For a closed source OS like MS and apple, a vulnerability can be fixed by their engineers and only their engineers. So waiting for their engineers is only what you do. But for an open source OS, where you can locate where the problem is in the code itself, patches can be done by almost anyone who have the solution. That speed up the security process.
Games on linux…….. a dream…….. games are OS and hardware dependent. So in order to make money, windows OS is the way to go.
I agree with you about those open source supporters. They diverges from their main message.
i`m using Linux Ubuntu for 3 years now, and i extremely happy. i use openoffice but still using MS office 2007 because it more powerful for me, but openoffice can do most the work, and i also use openoffice with Google Documents on line, so i rarely need MS Office.
the question is Windows Evil or not! and why Windows!? some googling have the answer and for me Windows to do it all they want to sell form OS to the mouse, and the fight illegally other – like Netscape-, and all there product in my opinion are Reaches but Rich, and they force you to use most of they product – if you remove Explorer u cant used Messenger-.
in my opinion every one must have the choice, if some one like Windows which is easy, come pre install in most PC, and support Games, and if i have problem any one can help my with it, and have great Office product, it there choice and i respect that.
finally i hope to see ur laptop double booting Windoes and Linux.
Addictioneer:
“I agree with you about those open source supporters. They diverges from their main message.” That’s my whole point of this post
WithLove:
Well yes, Microsoft had an ugly bad black history till 2003, but since then, things started to get better… Not entirely, but baby steps…
I’m not against Linux and OpenSource guys, I would actually love to turn my Xubuntu and mono my EVE Online (Takes some time and effort, I’ll do it whenever I’m in the mood)…
And I actually use both whenever I need each… AIRCRACK FTW!!!